With people who love playing retro-games and technology, Retropie and Raspberry Pi 3 are two very familiar items. Raspberry Pi 3 is a tiny and affordable computer that is very useful for us while Retropie is an operating system that can help us turn Raspberry Pi 3 into a retro-gaming machine. When you own both these two items, you can enjoy all of your favorites retro-games by your way.

When playing games, saving your hit milestones is so important because you can start your game at that point in the next time of playing that game. Besides that, with a favorite game, surely we want to sit hourly to play and enjoy it. However, this can make your Raspberry Pi 3 overheat. So, how to save games in Retropie save state and install Raspberry Pi 3 heatsinks? Read this article to learn more!

1. What is RetroPie?

First of all, we need to find out what is RetroPie? In fact, Retropie is an operating system that allows users to turn their Raspberry Pi or PC into a great retro-gaming machine. It is built upon Raspbian, EmulationStation, RetroArch, and many other projects. The main feature of RetroPie is to let users play their favorite arcade, home-console, and classic PC games using the minimum set-up. With people who use power, it also offers a large variety of configuration tools that let people customize the system as they want.

2. Retropie save state – How to save?

As mentioned above, we tend to save our game to the console’s storage device when hitting milestones inside the game. This action will help you to load up your progress from that milestone point when restarting the game. The way to save games in Retropie save state is very easy. If you don’t know how to do, follow this short guide below to know.

Automatically saving a game on Retropie save state.

Some games will automatically save progress when players exit the game correctly. So, if your game has this feature, the game will be saved automatically when you use Start+Select to exit the game.

Manually saving a game

This method is also very easy and commonly. You can use it for most of the games including the games that don’t offer the auto-save feature. The manipulation is so simple, just press Select+R1, your game will be saved on Retropie save state. In addition, to load a saved game in RetroPie, you just press Select+L1.

Manage Retropie save state slots

RetroPie supports multiple game slots and in order to manage them or save or load features of the state feature, you need to use a couple of button-combos on your Pi controller. Besides that, most controllers work using the same mapped keys. For this reason, if you want to manage your slots/save/load features, just use the hotkey combos as the following:

Press select + left on D-Pad to reduce the save state slot

Press select + right on D-Pad to increase save state slot

Press select + left shoulder to load from the current save slot

Press select + right shoulder to save to the current save slot

Using special controllers and remapping these commands

All the guide above will work for most controllers. However, in case you are using a keyboard or non-standard controller to play games, you need to change the mappings for the commands above. And in order to do that, please check out the RetroArch configuration section on wiki of RetroPie.

3. Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink install

Surely you don’t feel strange with Raspberry Pi 3 – a powerful single-board computer with a variety of benefits and features. The topics revolve around Raspberry Pi 3 are very rich in which Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink attract lots of attention. Below, we will guide you Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink install.

Why do you need to install Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink?

In fact, Raspberry Pi 3 is able to handle some heating issues with the temperature under 800C. However, it is better if you equip it with a heatsink, right? Moreover, when you have created countless electronics projects using your Raspberry Pi 3. You have worked or played your favorite game many hours on it; or even overclocked it to have maximum output, you will notice that your circuit board is overheated. If this situation takes place in a long time, your Raspberry Pi 3 will get problems and may be broken. In order to avoid any problem due to Raspberry Pi overheating, you need to install a heatsink on your Pi board.

Prepare for the Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink installation

In order to install the heatsink on Raspberry Pi 3, you need to prepare something below:

A Raspberry Pi 3 board

Two heatsinks to install on your Raspberry Pi 3. (one for LAN chip and the rest one for System on Chip (SoC))

A Cutter or knife to cut the thermal adhesive tape.

Thermal adhesive tape (if you don’t have it, you can use normal adhesive tape included with the heatsink package)

A wooden board (it will be used as a platform for the heatsink installation on Pi)

Where to get the Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink?

In case you have purchased a complete Raspberry Pi 3 starter kit, the heatsinks are available in that package and you don’t have to find it. In case you bought only a Raspberry Pi 3, you must purchase the heatsinks separately. You can find this equipment on the Raspberry Pi accessories vendor or order it on some big e-commerce sites like Amazon or eBay. Remind that you need to buy compatible heatsinks for your Raspberry Pi 3 model.

Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink install – Guide step by step

This section is about Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink install. It isn’t a very much difficult task, just follow the step by step guide below, it will become more simple.

Step-1: Find the place

First of all, you need to locate the areas that you are going to install heatsinks on your Raspberry Pi 3. There is a pair of heatsinks, so you need to find two areas. The large one will go on the processor chip and the smaller will go on the LAN chip. Let’s see the sample image below to know more.

Step 2: Install heatsinks on their suitable place

Let’s take one at a time. You can start with the larger chip at the processor.

First, cut the thermal adhesive tape according to the size of Raspberry Pi heatsink and put it below the cooling component.

Remove the protective sheet from the heatsink to open up the thermal paste layer.

Now, let’s peel off a protective layer side from the adhesive tape and put it on the opened up part of the heatsink.

After that, open the rest protective layer side of the adhesive tape and put the heatsink on the Broadcom SoC processor chip. Remind that you need to line up the edges of both the chip and heatsink to make sure the installation completes successfully.

Do the same as the process above to install the rest heatsink on the LAN chip of the Pi board.

Step-3: Enjoy working

After the progress above, now, you need to wait for some time. When you feel that the heatsinks are appropriately attached to your Pi board, it’s the time to enjoy your Raspberry Pi project without worry about any problem relating to overheating.

In the process of installing heatsinks on the Pi board, there are many small problems. For example, if there is a little overlap of the tape or the heatsink and chip are not correctly lined up, don’t worry! They don’t affect your result at all.

In addition, if you can’t get heatsinks, you also can use fans to cool down the Raspberry Pi 3. This equipment may be easier to find in many stores around your town. However, remind you that using fans can make a little noisy and they also require more space than heatsinks. In general, using heatsinks to cool down Pi board is the best choice for you. In case you can’t get them, using fans are also a good alternative.

Conclusion: Above, I have just guided you to save your games in Retropie save state and install Raspberry Pi 3 heatsink. In fact, both the way to save your games and install heatsinks for Pi board are so easy. You can make them with a few types of equipment that are very easy to find. I hope that this guide will help you enjoy your favorite retro-games without worry about how to save game or overheating Raspberry Pi 3 when playing games continuously for a long time.

If you know other quick and easy method for saving game in Retropie save state and install heatsinks for Pi board 3, share your ideas with us! In addition, if you have any question need to discuss, please feel free to leave us a comment down below. Finally, thank you for reading our article!